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It's
déjà vu all over again for residents of Alaska House District 36, which
includes the Kodiak Island Borough and portions of the Lake
and Peninsula Borough. It was weeks after the August primary election before
the winner of the Democratic contest was known, and now it might be just as
long before we know the results of the general election.

Republican
Alan Austerman has a thin lead over Democrat Andy Lundquist. With 13 of 14
precincts reporting as of 12:30 this morning, Austerman had 2,047 votes to
Lundquist's 1,936, a difference of only 111. That is less than 3 percentage
points difference.

It
was an up-and-down night for the candidates, with only 11 votes separating them
after the first round of precincts reported, but then Austerman's lead swelled
to 125 later in the evening before shrinking to 89 votes at 11 p.m. and
bouncing back up to 116 at midnight.

Austerman
says he is not surprised by the closeness of the race:

--(Dist 36-130 sec"It's
hard to see them ... really good, close race.")

Lundquist
had to wait weeks before he knew he had won the August primary election, and he
seemed comfortable last night with waiting a little while longer for the
general election results:

--(Dist 36-212 sec"Heh,
heh, I'm used to it ... that's the way it is.")

Austerman,
who in the past has represented Kodiak in both the state house and state
senate, gave the newcomer Lundquist credit for a job well done:

--(Dist 36-314 sec"I've
got to give Andy ... congratulate him on that portion.")

Lundquist
said his campaign was about highlighting the differences between him and
Austerman:

--(Dist 36-424 sec"I
think quite a few ... that's the way I'd do it.")

Though
only one precinct has yet to report, there are an unknown number of absentee
ballots outstanding. And given the brisk pace of early absentee-in-person
voting that occurred in Kodiak over the past two weeks, there could be hundreds
of votes left to count.